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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;StGauden658, post: 1039362, member: 21083&quot;]Some infor on A.M. Smith:</p><p><br /></p><p>Born Anders Madsen Schmidt, in&nbsp; Knudsbol, Parish of Jordrup, Denmark,&nbsp;&nbsp; on February 4, 1841, Andrew Madsen Smith (as he came to be known)&nbsp; emigrated to&nbsp; the United States, arriving&nbsp; in Philadelphia&nbsp; on May 1,&nbsp; 1859. In 1861 he was in the business of selling chickens.&nbsp; Subsequently&nbsp; he served in the Union Army and Navy, and traveled extensively and&nbsp;&nbsp; lived throughout the West. In 1875 he returned to Philadelphia,&nbsp; and in&nbsp; that city was a dealer in wines and in rare coins at 6th and Chestnut&nbsp;&nbsp; streets through the year 1886, when he moved to Minneapolis. In 1885 his&nbsp; biography, <i>Luck&nbsp; of a Wandering Dane, </i>appeared under the <i>nom de plume </i>Hans&nbsp;&nbsp; Lykkejaeger. His updated biography was published in 1890 in&nbsp; Minneapolis, and gave 249 Hennepin Avenue as his address.&nbsp; Bearing the&nbsp; name of A.M. Smith as author, it was titled <i>Up </i><i>and Down in the World, or Paddle Your Own Canoe. </i>In 1886 he published the <i>Encyclopedia of Gold and&nbsp; Silver Coins of the World. </i>For&nbsp; a number of years he operated the California&nbsp; Restaurant at 247&nbsp; Hennepin Avenue,&nbsp; decorated with sets of coins and medals framed high on&nbsp; the walls. Smith joined&nbsp; the American Numismatic Association in 1901.&nbsp; In August of that year he&nbsp; advertised in <i>The Numismatist </i>and offered Proof trade dollars of the&nbsp; 1879-1883 years for $2 each. The <i>Minneapolis</i><i> Jour</i><i>nal; </i>December 5, 1908, printed the following: </p><p>&nbsp;The silver dollar of the date of 1884, that sold in&nbsp; Chicago [a&nbsp; silver 1884 trade dollar in Ben Green&#039;s auction] for $280, is what&nbsp; is&nbsp; known as the &quot;trade dollar,&quot; and it is doubtful if more than a few&nbsp;&nbsp; hundred people have ever seen one of that date, as there were only five&nbsp; struck&nbsp; in silver and a few in copper, and these are in collections,&nbsp; closely guarded.&nbsp; A.M. Smith of Minneapolis&nbsp; has one of the copper&nbsp; Proofs in his collection of coins, others are in private&nbsp; collections in&nbsp; the East and in the United States Mint Collection. When the&nbsp; story of&nbsp; the Chicago sale appeared, hundreds of&nbsp; persons of Minneapolis&nbsp; made the&nbsp; mistake of thinking that it was the ordinary standard dollar of 1884&nbsp;&nbsp; that brought the high premium, and many thought they had a small fortune&nbsp; in&nbsp; their grasp, when, in hunting through their pockets and cash&nbsp; registers they&nbsp; discovered several of that date. AM. Smith has been kept&nbsp; busy for the last four&nbsp; or five days informing people that they did not&nbsp; have any of the valuable coins.&nbsp; In one day he answered over 100&nbsp; telephone inquiries on the subject. </p><p>&nbsp; </p><p>&nbsp;Smith died in Minneapolis&nbsp; on July 20, 1915. (<i>Mason&#039;s Monthly Illustrated&nbsp; Coin Collector&#039;s Magazine, </i>June&nbsp; 1890,&nbsp; p. 7, gave the curious and incorrect information that &quot;A.M.&nbsp; Smith&quot;was&nbsp; really Jacob Smith, who used the name of his wife, Annie M.&nbsp; Smith, in his&nbsp; business. Smith&#039;s wife was the former Botilla Elberg.&nbsp; Pete Smith (no kin to&nbsp; A.M.S.) has written a biography of A.M. Smith;&nbsp; see Bibliography.) </p><p>&nbsp;•&nbsp; Private collection, apparently still with certain other 1884 copper strikings&nbsp; (information per Walter Breen)[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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